The Questers: Spark of Madness
The Questers: Spark of Madness is part of the The Questers: Home short collection. ---- "So, does anyone have any idea at all as to what Zack's up to right now?" Natalie asked. She was answered by three shrugs and shaken heads. "Seriously, he told none of us?" "Pretty much." Ava said. "Sat down in the forge before the sun came up and hasn't moved since." "Probably trying to build a bomb, honestly." Kyra said. They nodded, knowing full well she wasn't anywhere close to joking. Ava hopped down from her perch on the kitchen counter and looked out the window. "It's sundown. Do you think we should go get him?" Michael asked. They all looked around at one another for a moment. "Nah." Ava eventually said. "Probably just like the time someone rigged the climbing wall so he couldn't beat it and he stayed out there until like, two to keep trying." "I'll go make sure he hasn't overheated and passed out, first, then I'm going to bed." Natalie said. "Good luck." Kyra quipped and left to return to the Apollo cabin. Michael scrambled out of his chair and had jumped on the couch before Ava could spring for it. Ava made a hand gesture that resembled a strangling and grumbled something expletive before taking refuge in the recliner. Natalie shook her head and left the cabin. She walked to the other end of camp and found the forge, mostly abandoned, save for one person. Zack was still sitting at his stool, trying to piece a large hunk of metal over some form of electronic contraption. "Yo." she said, and he looked over. His face was covered in grime and soot from the forge, save for the area around his eyes, which had been covered by a set of goggles. "You alright? You've been out here for...forever." She said. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just want to finish this thing before I go to bed." He said. "The hell are you making, anyway?" She asked. "You know how the Apollo cabin has sonic arrows?" "Yeah." "Thought about maybe making a bomb or landmine with the same effect." He said. "Like, plant one of these somewhere and wait for monsters to pass over it, turn it on, and watch the gold dust fly." "Nice, but do you have to miss sleep for it?" "Nat, I haven't had a full night's sleep in five years." He pointed out. "Well, you're not wrong." She said. "Alright then, we're all headed to bed. Try to get to sleep before three in the morning this time." She said and left him at the forge. He waited for her to be well beyond earshot, then leaned down and placed a small camera in front of him. "Ok, almost got caught." he whispered to it. "Let's review. I'm building a megaspeaker that should play audio to be heard quite loudly from the middle of camp to HQ. I'm gonna plant this thing in the middle of camp and make for New York in the night. Mr. D has given the go ahead, so I should die. Will probably get beat up for this. Decided on The Heretic Anthem by Slipknot and Walk by Pantera for the songs. I have cameras set up outside each cabin and they'll stream to my laptop, which I will watch from a hotel room somewhere safe. Gonna set the thing on a timer for five in the morning, this is gonna be fun." ---- Silence reigned over Camp Half-Blood. The only sounds were that of the gentle breeze moving through the air as the sun was only just beginning to dawn on the horizon. In the cabin, not even the earliest of risers was stirring yet, and this was also true for The Questers' headquarters, where Michael and Ava were both sound asleep, peacefully dreaming, not disturbed by nightmares but instead immersed in whatever wonderful stories their heads could make. Then, the peace was shattered. At a volume that made it so even the sleeping Questers in their headquarters heard it as though it was headphones in their ears, a heavy metal song cut the silence and awoke everyone immediately. Ava jolted awake, eyes wide as Michael practically jumped off his recliner in shock and fell to the ground in a heap. The two looked at one another and, simultaneously, realized what had happened. "I...am going...to kill him." Ava snarled. Camp was pandemonium. Several demigods stormed out of their cabins and ran for who they believed to be the one to have disturbed their slumbers, only to cause large brawls to break out all over the camp. At one point, some members of the Poseidon cabin ended up getting tackled and dog piled by members of the Hades and Athena cabins, while the Apollo cabin fended off several thrown swords from the Hermes cabin as they tried to defend themselves against their link to music. Ironically, the only cabin to not join in on the madness was the Ares cabin. In fact, when the music began to play and wake everyone up, the members of the Ares cabin woke up, sat up, looked around at one another, sighed and went back to sleep, some of them muttering "Oh, Zack." as they did so. For seemingly hours, campers were at war with one another, save for a select few who knew exactly who the perpetrator had been. Ava and Kyra bumped into each other and Kyra grabbed her by the shoulders. "Where the hell is he?" "I don't know, I've been looking." "I am going to kill him." Kyra snarled. "Where's Nat? Didn't see her out there." "I think she just looked for earmuffs." Kyra said. "What about Michael?" "Mostly the same. He's not happy." "Is anyone?" Kyra snapped, holding her hands up to gesture at the madness surrounding them. "Good point." Ava grumbled, looking around. "Listen, he's smart enough to know we'd try to kill him, so he probably ran away. He'll be back in a few hours, we'll just have to wait for him." "If there's a chance he's around here I will find him." Kyra said and ran off as Ava sighed and started to walk back to the headquarters. The whole time, Zack lay on a hotel bed, looking at his tv screen, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. ---- Four days passed before anything happened again. It was roughly nine in the morning when the sound of glass dropping in The Questers' headquarters abruptly awoke Ava and Michael. They looked into the kitchen and saw Zack standing before the shattered remains of a mug. "Well...crap." Zack said. "Hey guys, what's up?" Ava was on her feet in a second and Michael simply watched as she drove a right hook straight from Tartarus itself into Zack's jaw, sending him crashing into the kitchen counter and to the floor. Michael would later describe the following events to be stuffed to the brim with profanity as well as several nearly broken knuckles of Ava's. Even after she was done beating Zack up, the son of Ares still didn't seem to regret his actions at all. After she left, Zack, in full view of Michael, pulled out a notepad and wrote something down, muttering "Project Camp a success...now to pull this on the Heroes Organization..." Category:Odst grievous Category:The Questers (OC Club)